Dramatic Necklace Removal

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A Plot Coupon takes the form of a necklace or talisman worn around the neck, and any prominent locket, pendant or other item that is worn in this fashion will either be a piece of Applied Phlebotinum or just something with significant emotional baggage (or fodder for a later plot twist). Naturally, for such an item to be useful for the plot, it can't just stay there.

In any of these cases, because Reality Is Unrealistic, nobody will simply unclasp the thing and pocket it until later. Rather, the one doing the removing- be they friend, foe or even the wearer themself- will grab the pendant and rip it forcibly off of their neck. There's never any difficulty in this, whether the item is held by a string, a leather thong, or even a chain, nor does the wearer seem to suffer any injury. Then when the item is invariably seen again on someone's neck, nobody complains about having to tie the broken string back together, fix the chain, etc. Apparently all Applied Phlebotinum comes with magnetic breakaway clasps.

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Of course, they do make clasps designed to release when yanked on, as a safety feature to prevent someone from getting clotheslined if the chain gets caught on something (or grabbed by someone). It's just not typically a standard feature on jewelry.

Note that this applies to other forms of jewelry or clothing that serve the same purpose. It may be a bracelet, earrings, a ring, or even some piece of clothing. Body jewelry doesn't count, as removing such generally does cause an injury to the wearer, even on TV. Hand bags with long straps are specially good for this.

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Examples

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Anime & Manga

In Bleach, Chad becomes friends with Ichigo when the later saves him when a group of delinquents ties him up and taunt him over the coin he wears around his neck (which reminds him of his grandfather who, according to the same flashback, taught him to stop being a jerkass and become the technical pacifist he is). They then agree to protect one another, as Chad refuses to fight to protect himself (luckily he happens to be Made of Iron).

Played with in the Devil May Cry 3 manga. Dante's amulet is very important to the plot, and when the chain holding it breaks, his efforts at a quick fix don't work out very well.

In InuYasha, Kikyo protected the Jewel of Four Souls by wearing it on a necklace. What happens to it becomes the MacGuffin in the main plot.

When Kagome wears the Shikon Shards around her neck, she's subjected to a similar treatment more than once.

When Moka's necklace comes off in Rosario + Vampire, you don't want to be anywhere nearby. Inner Moka tends not to ask too many questions before kicking some serious ass.

The whole break-it-off-without-damaging-the-chain-or-harming-the-wearer thing is justified, as explained in one of the end-of-volume omakes: the rosario is connected to Moka's choker by a puzzle-ring chain, so it's designed to come off without damage when Tsukune makes a grab for it.

Definitely don't be caught next to Tsukune when his 'Holy Lock' breaks. While Inner Moka has higher cognitive mental processes, Ghoul Tsukunedoes not. And when that breaks, it does get damaged.

Sailor Moon has Mistress 9 doing this to Chibiusa with her Heart Crystal.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yugi wears his Millennium Puzzle around his neck. Given that the Puzzle is his connection to Yami no Yugi, you know that something major is going down whenever he takes off the Puzzle in public. He also switches from thread to a chain halfway through the series specifically to avoid someone else yanking it off.

Played with in an episode in the anime along with the Abridged Series: In the very episode where Yugi first puts the chain on, a bad guy steals it and puts it on a ring-ended metal spike which is stabbed into the wall. Because the puzzle is on a chain and not a string, Yugi can't pull it free. Doesn't work well when the building it is trapped in is on fire! Good thing for Yugi that Joey and Tristan were nearby.

Yugi takes it off for the final time when he returns it to the Millennium Stone, initiating the Ceremonial Duel that will open the door to the afterlife.

For either cultural or legal reasons whenever the Twilight people of Gangsta. fight one another they have a Dramatic Dog Tag Removal where both sides show off their official ranking, where/who they belong to, their names, etc.

In Rurouni Kenshin, Yumi's necklace is undone and the pearls fly everywhere as she's stabbed by Shishio, who's trying to stab Kenshin.

Duck's pendant in Princess Tutu gets more than one dramatic removal, since she needs it to stay human, as well as to become Princess Tutu. Needless to say, removing it is always a big deal. However, she never yanks it off - the only time she doesn't unclasp it is when the chain gets cut and it falls off.

In the Haunted Junction TV series, a similar effect is used with Hanako-chan's purse when she's run over by a car and killed. First there's a close-up to the approaching vehicle, then another to the screaming girl (plus Haruna Ikezawa-as-Hanako-chan's high-pitched scream), and then the audience sees the purse flying in the air, its golden strap shining in the dark.

Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin has this occur to Gin. During a fight with Sniper, the Doberman bites down on the Akita's neck. Gin's neck is thought to have been broken at first, but it's revealed that his collar was what was broken and that it saved him from death.

In YuYu Hakusho, Hiei's stone necklace from his mother is dramatically cut off, causing him to get the Jagan Eye just so he can find it.

Comics

In the SandmanStory Arc "A Game of You", Barbie is wearing a magic necklace which must not be taken off her; it's said to be the only thing keeping her alive. In the dream-world, The Cuckoo later makes her take it off and smash it against a rock, which causes it to disappear in the "real" world as well.

In Runaways, a medical alert bracelet is ripped off repeatedly, visibly breaking every time- only to be put back on only minutes or seconds later without any visible difficulty or sign of repair.

Films — Animation

In Disney's Cinderella, Anastasia and Drizella destroy Cinderella's dress, starting with Drizella yanking her necklace from her neck.

Near the end of The Little Mermaid, just right after the animals discover that Vanessa is actually Ursula in disguise, they all attack her during her wedding to Eric and first pull the necklace Vanessa/Ursula had trapped Ariel's voice in, then smash it.

Pocahontas has a pretty disturbing one — Pocahontas' father gives her a necklace at the beginning of the movie during the scene where he talks about her eventual marriage to Kocoum. She's supposed to wear it to her wedding, and it used to belong to her mother. In the scene where Kocoum sees Pocahontas consorting with John Smith and it all hits the fan, Kocoum is fatally shot and dies falling backwards into water. As he goes down, he grabs at the necklace around Pocahontas' neck, shattering it into tiny pieces.

In The Prince of Egypt, when Moses is wandering aimlessly around the desert after he accidentally killed a slave driver, he rips his sandal, and begins removing his Egyptian jewelry (including a big honking breastplate necklace thing) and leaves them in the sand as a symbol of him leaving the identity he's known. He keeps one piece of jewelry, though: the ring his brother gave him. He doesn't remove it until much later when he symbolically (and dramatically) severs his last ties with Rameses.

The Princess and the Frog. Lawrence rips off the voodoo talisman around his neck and throws it back at Facilier. Facilier ties it back together though, and talks Lawrence into keeping it.

In the animated adapatation of The King and I, the King rips off the necklace Prince Chulalongkorn gave to the servant Tuptim.

The Rugrats Movie: While Spike fights the Savage Wolf to save the babies, the wolf ends up ripping Spike's collar off to show that it means business.

Films — Live Action

Top Gun has Maverick, after a whole bunch of angst over the guilt he feels over Goose's death, taking Goose's dog tags and chucking them into the ocean.

In the 1995 movie version of A Little Princess the Sadist Teacher Miss Minchin takes Sara's locket from her this way, telling her that she can have her arrested for stealing things.

Rush Hour: Detective Inspector Lee does this to a waitress at the Chinese restaurant where Detective Carter is being held captive.

Justified because Lee recognized the necklace as the one he had given Consul Han's daughter, Soo Yung, as a present; ostensibly, it was taken from the girl when she was kidnapped, and given to the waitress. After Soo Yung is safely recovered, Lee returns the necklace to her.

Undercover Brother: The title character wears a medallion around his neck given to him by this father so he'll never forget who he is or what he stands for (protecting black people from racism). Late in the movie the racist villain Mr. Feather captures him and rips it off his neck. In a final battle Undercover Brother beats the fertilizer out of Mr. Feather and retrieves the necklace, securing it around his neck again.

In At World's End, Sao Feng breaks the cord of his necklace when he gives it to Elizabeth as he dies, making her Captain and Pirate Lord in his place, and Barbossa breaks it again when he takes the Piece of Eight from her. Also, Mercer keeps the key to the Dead Man's Chest on a necklace, which Davy Jones snaps shortly after snapping Mercer's neck.

The Phantom of the Opera (2004): Christine wears Raoul's engagement ring on a chain around her neck, hoping nobody (read: the Phantom) will notice it. He does. This ensues:

"Your chains are still mine! You belong to me."

Because the best place you want to put something to hide it from the man who's obsessively in love with you is your cleavage.

Happens to Satine in Moulin Rouge! when she goes to have supper with the Duke. She is standing on a balcony when he gives her an immense diamond necklace, but she can't go through with her plan to seduce him when she sees Christian standing below her in the snow. The Duke proceeds to rip the necklace off (pretty painful, it was a metal choker) before attempting to rape her.

In Stargate, Ra takes Daniel Jackson's pendant, and then later, Daniel takes it back the same way.

An interesting example, in that the pendant was Ra's to begin with. Daniel received it from a gift from someone else who found it during an archeological dig. Ra lost it when a slave uprising forced him to leave Earth.

In The Descent, Beth rips Juno's necklace from her as she collapses to the floor, due to being stabbed through the throat with Juno's pickaxe.

The Lord of the Rings: Isildur does this in order to get the One Ring off the chain around his neck and onto his finger when he was ambushed near the start of the Fellowship of the Ring. Justified, since he was under attack and therefore in a bit of a hurry. Not to mention wearing neck armor. Not justified, however, in the numerous other times somebody yanked the One Ring free of its chain.

In The Matrix Reloaded, the Keymaker does this with the key he wears around his neck. How (or, more importantly, WHY) he manages to do this while dying from bullet wounds is anyone's guess.

In Ice Cold in Alex Tom Pugh removes Otto Lutz's dog tags in this manner he must do this in a hurry to prevent Lutz from being executed as a spy, as if Lutz were found to be still wearing the dog tags when he is taken to a POW camp for captured Germans it would reveal that he had been posing as a South African soldier.

In Rambo III, Rambo rips off his lucky Buddha necklace to give to the hurt kid.

In Poison Ivy - a climactic scene involves Ivy half dangling off a building, struggling with the protagonist, when her eye is caught by the meaningful necklace the protagonist is wearing and she makes a grab for it. For one of them, it's a good thing that chain wasn't very strong. For the other one, well, *splat*.

In The Hunger, the non-traditional vampires Miriam and John each wear a chain with an ankh pendant on it. The pendants conceal the blades that they use to kill their victims — so it's best not to be there when they pull off this trope...

The Fourth Protocol. KGB agent Petrofsky and weapons specialist Vassilievna assemble an atomic bomb, then sleep together. Petrofsky murders her the next day, as per his orders, but hesitates at activating the timer for the atomic bomb. He returns to her body and callously yanks free the key on a necklace that unlocks the timer compartment...and finds the timer has been set on zero.

Hiresha from Lady of Gems series has this happen to her fairly often throughout the series. Mind you, its more often earrings and/or the jewelry she has embedded in her body than an actual necklace.

David Eddings' Belgariad: Belgarath, Polgara and Belgarion all have neck chains with an amulet on them. Late in the series, C'nedra is given one as well. The chains are unbreakable by normal means, but during the climactic battle the god Torak breaks Belgarath's.

In the novel Number the Stars, the Jewish Ellen is hiding with her Gentile friend Annemarie's family. When the Nazis show up the girls realize Ellen still has her Star of David necklace on, but she's worn it so long she can't figure out how the clasp works in her panicky state. Annemarie then grabs the necklace and rips it off, breaking the chain just as the soldiers enter the room. Note that the broken chain is addressed: When Annemarie finds the necklace at the end she asks her father to fix it, declaring that she will wear it herself until Ellen comes back from hiding. And she does warn her first that it's going to hurt.

At the end of the fourth Codex Alera book, Amara dramatically removes the coin she wears as a sign of her loyalty to the First Lord after she witnesses him willingly unleashing a volcano on a major city in order to kill the subversive who runs it.

In the beginning of American Gods, Shadow accidentally sorta resurrects his recently-deceased wife by leaving a magical gold coin in her grave. She wears the coin on a necklace for the rest of the story, until the end when she decides she doesn't want to get fully resurrected and Shadow takes the coin off, making her properly dead.

David Drake's The Forlorn Hope takes place during a civil war in which one side is controlled by a particularly intolerant breed of Protestants. This is demonstrated when a "chaplain" threatens the life of a foreign neutral for the "crime" of being Roman Catholic; he pulls the foreigner's crucifix necklace until the chain breaks, drops the crucifix on the floor and steps on it, and says, "On Cecach we no longer worship a dead god, Captain. We worship the One Who is Risen. This will be your only warning."

Late in Neverwhere, Big Bad Islington finally gets the key he's been after, which is on a chain around Door's neck. He rips it off with no more than a wince from her.

At the climax of A Hat Full of Sky, Tiffany rips off the Horse carving from her neck, breaking the chain, for use in a shamble, a kind of divinatory spell. It subsequently appears back on her neck, chain whole, with no explanation.

In Anne of the Island, Anne intends to wear a pendant that Gilbert had given her to the graduation dance. On the way there she hears a rumor that Gilbert is engaged to marry Christine Stuart:

Anne did not speak. In the darkness she felt her face burning. She slipped her hand inside her collar and caught at the gold chain. One energetic twist and it gave way. Anne thrust the broken trinket into her pocket. Her hands were trembling and her eyes were smarting.

In 17 and Gone, Lauren's magic necklace is removed in the third part of the book. She's forced to see it for what it is—a rock.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, Balon Greyjoy's first words to his son on seeing him for the first time in eight years are to ask whether the gold necklace he's wearing was paid for "with the gold price, or the iron" — that is, whether it was bought with money or looted from the corpse of a dead enemy, the latter being the only acceptable circumstance for a man of their culture to wear jewellery. On being told it was paid for, Balon replies "I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore" and pulls it off with "a yank so hard it was like to take Theon's head off, had the chain not snapped first."

Journey to Chaos: Kasile rips off a necklace given to her by Lunas and dashes it on the ground. It was a semi-sentient mind-controlling necklace and really didn't want to come off. It zapped Eric when he tried to undo the clasp.

WarriorCats has this occur to Firestar early on. He was a kittypet who wore a collar with a bell on it. After he runs away to be with feral cats, several ThunderClan cats disagree with him joining the Clan due to all the trouble the collar would cause. His collar gets torn off in a fight with Longtail, causing Bluestar to declare it a divine sign that Firestar is meant to join the Clan, and Firestar to win the respect of the Clan as well as he lose his ties to being a pet cat.

Invoked in The Wheel of Time by Queen Alliandre. In an audience with the mad self-styled Prophet whose army deposed three of her predecessors, he makes a disapproving remark about her obvious wealth, so she tears off her ornate pearl necklace as a donation to his cause. As a third party observes, the gesture costs her a piece of jewelry to appease the most dangerous man in the country.

In chapter 18 of Varjak Paw, Holly finally tears off former-housecat Varjak's collar, the last bit tying him to the Contessa's house and his family.

Live Action TV

In Breaking Bad, Mike takes Don Eladio's necklace after he falls into his pool. Gus presents it to Hector to show him that the Don is dead.

Game of Thrones: In "The Night Lands", Balon Greyjoy rips off the chain fastening of Theon's cloak when he learns it was paid for with gold, something he considers effeminate.

Seen several times on Lost, on which necklaces are a motif. The Nigerian warlords who take Eko rip his cross off his neck. Eko later removes the same cross from his brother's corpse.

There's an inversion in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When Buffy goes to face Angelus for their final battle in "Becoming II" she puts on the necklace that Angel had given her in their first meeting, and that she hasn't worn since he lost his soul.

A earlier straight example, in "Prophecy Girl": Buffy tears off the same necklace (a crucifix) when she "resigns", and later puts it back on before she faces the Master.

Anya's vengeance demon pendant necklace, first seen in "The Wish", must be snatched away from her and crushed in order to reverse the wish Cordelia had made to her.

Lampshaded and parodied in "The Harsh Light of Day" with this quote from Harmony, uttered when Spike dramatically rips a necklace off of a corpse: "Ew. Like you're too good to work a clasp."

Are You Afraid of the Dark??, "The Tale of the Quicksilver": The protagonist realizes the ghost-trapping ritual they're performing isn't working because the piece of silverware the last girl used as the required sample of "silver" is, of course, actually made of steel. He rips his silver necklace off his neck and uses that instead.

Veronica Mars: Veronica wears her best friend Lily's necklace to a dorm-room casino when she's searching for Logan when everyone in the room is robbed, and the masked robber pulls it off her neck. When she finds the robber, she takes Lily's necklace back in like fashion from the robber's daughter.

On All My Children, after Gloria discovers her husband Adam's betrayal—he pretended to be stalked and kidnapped in order to test her fidelity, putting her through MONTHS of emotional trauma—she rips off the pearl necklace he gave her and lets the pearls fall to the ground.

The season 2 premiere of Warehouse 13 has the Big Bad of season 1 wearing a necklace that prevents his blood from turning acidic and eating through his veins. The new big bad sneaks up behind him and cuts the necklace off with a knife, causing his body to disintegrate.

Done repeatedly with the mind-reading pendant in Torchwood, which makes you wonder how they kept putting it back on...

Anne Boleyn does this to Jane Seymour in The Tudors, ripping off a locket that was a gift from Henry to her. One of Anne's ladies gives the locket back to Jane later in the episode.

Also happens in the earlier BBC Mini SeriesThe Six Wives of Henry VIII, but since the actress playing Anne Boleyn doesn't actually appear in the Jane Seymour episode it's shot with a double seen from behind.

In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Harmony", Shepherd rips off Harmony's royal necklace to activate the Ancient Device. The eponymous heroine almost hangs him for treason.

In H2O: Just Add Water when Charlotte tries to turn Lewis against the girls and become the most powerful mermaid, she steals Cleo's necklace like this, breaking the clasp. Later after Charlotte is defeated, Lewis has it fixed and puts it back on her.

In The Mentalist, O'Laughlin's dying act is to tear off the necklace he had given to Grace.

In the Supernatural episode "Hook Man", Sam does this to Lori's necklace because they need to burn it to destroy the titular Hook Man.

In Shadowhunters, when Izzy encounters Azazael, he realizes that the ruby pendant she wears around her neck (which was a family heirloom) acts as a sensor for demons, and promptly shatters the jewel before ripping the necklace off of her neck. It was eventually found by Alec and Magnus later.

In The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Demon with a Glass Hand", ripping off the necklace around the aliens' neck will send them back into the future. So this trope becomes a running theme as the hero takes out one alien mook after the other using this trope.

Elisabeth: At the end of "Maladie/Die letzte Chance", Elisabeth takes off the necklace Franz Joseph gave her and throws it at Death.

Video Games

Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. He spends most of the game going around with a modified bullet on a chain around his neck. Before climactic moments he rips it off his neck to get at the bullet. Although, since Ocelot is all about over-the-top imitation of movie tropes, it's probably slightly parodic.

In the first case of Apollo Justice, your client takes a necklace off the victim shortly before he is killed. This is plot-important, as it leads a witness to believe the victim was strangled, when in fact he was clonked on the head. As for why he took the necklace, the exact reason is never specified, but you can probably guess considering that it's a locket containing a picture of the victim's daughter, who the client has been raising for seven years.

Alexia Ashford in Resident Evil  Code: Veronica has her necklace fell off during her first transformation as her cloth was burnt by her own blood, the said necklace is also a key item for solving a puzzle.

A variation in Final Fantasy IX: in the final cutscene, when Queen Garnet runs toward Zidane, her Falcon Claw necklace comes loose and lands on the pavement behind her. She glances at it briefly before leaving it behind and rushing into Zidane's arms. She also removes her crown at that point for some reason.

In Astal, the title character ends up cracking the bottom of the ocean trying to get Leda back from Geist. The goddess Antowas sends Astal to the moon as punishment for this, but before he's sent there, Leda takes pity on him and gives him her jewel necklace.

Web Comics

In Girl Genius The pendant that Agatha wears gets this treatment, thus kicking off the entire plot. She's mugged early on, and the mugger yanks it off; later when she gets it back, the chain is intact again. Granted, fixing a chain would be no problem for Klaus, but still...

In Lackadaisy, kinda. Zib grabs Mitzi's pearl necklace. When she pulls away, the necklace breaks and the pearls go everywhere. While accidental on his part, considering the previous dialogue and seeing Mitzi scrambling to collect her pearls, it's very symbolic.

In Pirates of Dark Water, whenever Bloth captures Ren, the first thing he'll do is rip the compass from around his neck in this manner.

In The Simpsons episode "Strong Arms of the Ma", a mugger steals Marge's necklace by ripping it off her neck, psychologically scarring her in the process. Interestingly, she isn't seen wearing it for the rest of the episode, even though the earlier episode "Homer the Vigilante" reveals she has a drawer full of identical necklaces.

In Sofia the First episode "Hexley Hall", the weasel familiar Wiggly tries not once but twice to steal Sofia's amulet this way, succeeding on the second try. Sofia ultimately gets her amulet back with the help of both Cedric and Wormwood.

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